Different
by mo.texas55
Summary: Donatello's self-reflection.


**Donnie's POV. Let me know what you think and, most importantly, if it makes any sense.  
**

**Disclaimer: I love Donatello to bits, but he shall never be mine :(**

* * *

I am different.

They say intelligence is the gateway to complexity…or something like that. I guess to rephrase: Smart people are complicated. And who am I to argue? If you think about it, it's just a parallel to the common absurdity that "ignorance is bliss." But I suppose it really isn't all that absurd. The more you know is the more you know. It's as simple as that.

It's just that…Well…It's not really simple at all. The more you know is the more you understand, and the more you understand, the bigger the world gets, and the bigger the world gets, the more you begin to realize that you're alone in it.

There are three kinds of people: those who don't know, those who _do_ know, and those who choose not to be complex because it's much easier to simply do what everyone else does. Because when you do what everyone else does, you don't single yourself out. When you don't single yourself out, you're not alone.

But those who do know, and _choose_ to know, understand that, while knowledge is bitter-sweet, it's impossible to reconfigure who they truly are.

That's me.

I am different.

I live in a grey world, a place where black and white are fused together and life is not so flawless. In my ashen universe, good and bad are not so easily distinguished and every life is made of light and dark and tragically misunderstood.

My brother Raphael is the most aggressive, temperamental, audacious character you could ever meet. And yet behind his hardened shell of bravado he is the most emotional of all my brothers. He might curl his lip and cross his muscled arms and tell you he "don't give a flying fuck," but if you pinch his heart it bruises. If you twist it, he cries. He may stomp around in macho-man, steel-toed, vigilante boots, but the turtle behind the façade is afraid, and attached, and good.

My brother Leonardo is surprisingly not so different. He is the picture of perfection whose biggest flaw, ironically, is that he is so intensely focused on being perfect. He too dons a mask, and his façade is unemotional. Though he does not fly into a rage when his weaknesses are attacked, he does draw inside himself and, like Raph, denies he is in pain. He gives the impression that he is unharmed, that he is bigger than the threat, that he is unaffected and unbreakable, but behind the guise of sheer calm and indifference, he panics.

My brother Michelangelo is very much the opposite of myself. His life is splayed in a black and white world, where good and bad are obviously segregated and easy to distinguish, where everything moral and just prevails and the life he leads is full of such straightforwardness that nothing ever needs questioning and everything that makes him smile is a good thing. He does not know…And I envy him that.

I am different.

I see through eyes of fact and logic, while I am taught to live by intangible ideas such as hope, love, and trust. There are many concepts that come easily to me, while others I struggle to understand. Like the idea of intelligence…If I'm so smart, why do I feel so stupid? It's an idea I feel I should be able to grasp, but whenever I try, it slips through my fingers like the concept of my own existence.

Whoever created me, _whatever_ created me, has a twisted sense of humor. While physically I am some sordid hybrid of human and reptile, internally I am a nauseating blend of all three of my brothers…and yet I am different. I am known to be enthusiastic like Mikey, passionate like Raph, and a model of Zen like Leo, and yet I am nothing like my brothers.

I am different—a freak among freaks.

I am quiet, reserved, pacifistic, and worst of all I understand.

What's so bad about that, you ask? What's so terrible about being quiet and reserved in a houseful of boys where my business is _everyone's_ business? What's so terrible about shuddering at violence being raised as a ninja? What's so terrible about understanding and having a talent for sympathy having brothers who hurt and writhe in a pain they choose to conceal but is so obvious to me because I was born to understand what they cannot? You tell me.

I am different because I long not to be what I am. I ache for Mikey's simplicity. I envy Raph's aggression. And I yearn to be the kind of oblivious Leo is. There is no such thing as perfection, but he strives for it, believing that there is. I strive for it, knowing that I am limited and to push beyond those limits is to fail. I keep trying, though physically I am not strong, mentally I have no room to float, and emotionally I cannot hide what I am—what I feel…I _want_ to be loud and rambunctious. I _want_ to desire social interactions. I _want_ to appreciate my awkward position as a pacifistic ninja and a freak that has so much to offer the same world that will reject my green skin, carapace, and three-fingered hands. But I don't have all these things because I know what I am, and I know I can't change.

I am different because the world to me is big and full of complexity and while I long for someone to understand _me_, I know that there is no one like me.


End file.
